Tory campaign worker in Guelph tweeted robocall warning two days before election

On the day “Pierre Poutine” activated the burner cellphone used to launch his robocall blitz on voters in Guelph, Ont., a young Conservative campaign worker sent out a message on Twitter warning of “voter suppression calls” aimed at his party.

OTTAWA — On the day “Pierre Poutine” activated the burner cellphone used to launch his robocall blitz on voters in Guelph, Ont., a young Conservative campaign worker sent out a message on Twitter warning of “voter suppression calls” aimed at his party.

Andrew Prescott, deputy campaign manager to Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke, tweeted on April 30, “Anti-#CPC voter suppression phone calls currently underway in Guelph, suspecting #LPC #elxn41” — referencing the Twitter shorthand for the Liberal Party of Canada and the 41st general election.

Prescott, a self-described cellphone expert, followed up a few minutes later with another tweet claiming that these phone calls were “using spoofed Caller-ID of Burke campaign. I ‘wonder’ who it could be . . .”

He also sent a public Twitter message to CBC blogger Kady O’Malley, speculating the Liberals’ internal polling “must be REALLY BAD, voter suppression calls in Guelph AND Halton . . . anywhere else?”

But it was not until two days later, on election day, that reports of fraudulent Elections Canada calls began to flood in, prompting the agency to send out a news release warning electors to ignore the fake calls.

More than 100 voters misled by the fake robocalls showed up at the Quebec Street Mall polling station, where some of them ripped up their voter IDs in anger.

The Ottawa Citizen could find no media reports from Guelph referring to spoofed phone calls or voter suppression calls aimed at Burke supporters before election day.

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Elections Canada has traced calls from a disposable Virgin Mobile cellphone registered to the name Pierre Poutine, to RackNine, the Edmonton-based voice-broadcasting company that was used, unbeknownst to its owner, to send out the fake Elections Canada calls at the centre of the robocalls scandal.

Prescott is the only Burke campaign worker known to have held an account at RackNine. He has denied any involvement in those calls, saying he used the service only for legitimate reasons, to promote Burke campaign events and, on election day, to warn Burke supporters about fraudulent calls.

Asked about the tweets on Thursday, Prescott sent an email saying he did not want to comment. Pressed, he emailed back, “you’ve already tried and sentenced me in your own mind, so I’m through talking to you. But for the record, you’re wrong. Goodbye.”

As yet, nobody knows the identity of the mysterious Pierre Poutine, but last week investigators began questioning people close to the Guelph campaign, after 10 months of methodically tracking the robocall villain’s digital trail.

Meier says Pierre Poutine signed up as Pierre Jones, and claimed to be a commerce student at the University of Ottawa. He gave that information to Elections Canada, but Pierre Poutine had covered his tracks well, using a burner phone, a fake address in Joliette, Que., and a prepaid credit card, so that there was no digital trail leading to his door.

But Meier found the IP trail that he thinks will lead investigators to the door of the real Pierre Poutine.

“He screwed up,” Meier told the Post. “Just for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for me to find him.”

Meier has given that information to Elections Canada, and he hopes they have now asked Rogers to identify the owner of the IP address in Guelph.

The Ottawa Citizen was unable to find any evidence of a Pierre Jones enrolled in commerce at the University of Ottawa.

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